


adagio

by pilynator



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mild Hurt/Comfort, about as slow burn as you can get in a one shot tbh, as in a lot of hurt bc bwi, cursed cabin days, female pronouns MC, mild comfort bc his route is suffering, not the most romantic fic, v/rika mention, vignette style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 19:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15444339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pilynator/pseuds/pilynator
Summary: Jihyun has been shedding parts of himself for years. It’s a death in slow motion, a death of little deaths, and he’s not quite sure how much he’s got left to lose.Day 2: minimalism||photoshootfor  Jihyun x MC Week 2018





	adagio

**Author's Note:**

> Still going through my old stuff while I try to get my last remaining brain cells to function in this heat for something new. It's...not going well.
> 
> Another April upload from before this account was a thing.

i.

His mother had been neatly cut out of his life by others and it had taken him years to notice, even more to finally piece together something resembling a person out of journal entries, newspaper clippings and memories. He had fought ( _was **still**_   _fighting_ ) to reclaim whatever pieces of her were left in the world and it had left him with a dull ache where he thinks her hugs might have connected, where she might have sat if he’d let her in more. It’s just the tiniest bit grotesque that he is reduced to making a mother shaped collage out of whatever he’s allowed to keep, Jihyun knows this, but it’s better than the nothing he’d have otherwise.

It hurts to know it took him so long to notice. A child has a way of working around the little incongruities in the world, smoothing over a crease in reality there, ignoring this, accepting that. Jihyun had been on the receiving end of An Education ( _A mistake_ , he thinks with the smallest hint of amusement,  _I did end up an **artist** after all_), which meant he was also familiar with some of those famous works of fancy his father both hated and loved to reference as a display of power. He feels a bit like the Pevensies must have felt, like walking out of Narnia in reverse and noticing, in excruciating detail, all the ways the world had been wrong all along.

It’s the first time he has to struggle to put things back where something had been gouged out, and it’s good practice.

 

* * *

ii.

The form had been filled out almost entirely in his handwriting. It made for a sad sight. Hesitant, shaky, even splotchy in the parts where his fears got the better of him. He gives it a searching look, turns it sideways, tries to imagine himself from the outside and see through the eyes of whatever person would be handling the submission. It’s just the documentation for a photography contest or the other, a bare bones assortment of personal details. It shouldn’t scare him this much.  _It does_. It shouldn’t matter.  _It does_. It matters in a monumental way that doesn’t quite match the small scope of the event, a gravitational pull he’s not quite sure he can escape.

Tap, tap, tap. Jihyun’s hands are now moving on their own, smacking the pen in his hand against the cold surface of the table in a jittery rhythm. It doesn’t make him any braver, but it fills the room with something other than the annoying sounds of his laptop fan. He lets the tapping continue out of sheer inertia. Jumin would know what to say. He’d probably talk this out, point out how irrational his fears are, do all those small things Jumin does to make him feel safe and sane and definitely not afraid of sending out a couple of prints to people he’ll never even have to acknowledge if this falls through.

Jumin isn’t here though, and Jihyun feels a small part of him square its shoulders up. He should do this on his own. He  ** _could_**  do this on his own. Have something good and proactive and powerful to talk about the next time they meet. Make Jumin proud! And. Other people. His mind darts briefly to a memory before recoiling back to the documents on the table. He can’t quite face the thought of his mother, not right now. Jumin doesn’t make his skin feel like it’s going to burn away, doesn’t make his chest constrict like a bear trap around his heart. He focuses on his friend instead and finds his hands a lot whole lot steadier as he stares down the last field he has to fill in.

They’re asking for a name and it’s making Jihyun want to curl up and never face the world ever again. The photos were one thing. Jumin had been right about that. Using the lens, putting a minuscule amount of distance between his thoughts and his traitorous hands had done wonders for his works. It felt less personal than painting, but it gave him more freedom as well. Putting down his name on these photos, however? Different story. It would take him across the defenses he’d built for himself and fling him face first into taking ownership for these thoughts. Unless…

It was a coward’s thought, but Jihyun had been having a lot of these recently and could appreciate the pragmatism in it.

He grabs an empty sheet of paper from the stationery pile and makes a few experimental pen strokes. Moves the characters around, plays with dropping and adding flourishes, scratches things out entirely. The Kim is easy enough to drop. Shockingly easy for something that’d been a part of him for so long, but it makes it on the chopping board before he’s even started with the alterations. The more he removes from the name, the better he feels, until he’s left with a series of sharp Vs scribbled absentmindedly around the edges to test how much ink is still left in the pen. Jihyun’s eyes linger on the simplicity of it. It feels good. Latin alphabet, too. About as succinct and far removed from Kim Jihyun you could get without leaving the space blank.

A couple of weeks later he gets the win in a neat little envelope. It says ‘Congratulations’ in a fancy font, and Jihyun feels faint with something that might either be excitement or complete dread. He thinks the font is interesting, though, and dutifully brings the whole thing along the next time he meets with Jumin, who is as serious as ever while he scans it. When he finally looks up, his eyes are warm and ( _yes!_ ) proud, with a slight twinkle to them.

‘You sent it off as V.’

It’s not a question.

‘It felt appropriate. You know me —’ and here Jihyun tips his wine glass slightly in Jumin’s general direction, ‘— mysterious.’

Jumin smiles fondly, and V ( _his thoughts slip into that pattern with barely any friction, even less concern_ ) grins back.

‘Should I call you that from now on?’

‘If you want to,’ V says with a shrug. It doesn’t feel terribly important. Faintly, in the back of his head, he feels something slide neatly out of his grasp. He’s not sure what.

‘What do  _you_  want?’

V laughs in response. It’s small, but it has a leaden finality to it. A full stop for  _something_. He feels like he hasn’t stopped laughing at that question ever since.

 

* * *

iii.

Rika likes to talk to him about his art, enjoys the practice of moving in and out and around ideas. Every time she does it, she seems to change shape a bit more, like there’s something bubbling right underneath the surface, pushing her skin in multiple directions at once. She’s trying on modes of being, it occurs to him one day. She’s slipping out of herself as easily as he snatches images away from the world and V loves her for it, wants to watch her live out that intensity for as long as he can.

It feels natural to include her in more of his work. It feels safe. He can try things out too. Let her in on whispered confessions about love. Wrap his emptiness up in words and celluloid, desperately hoping she’ll understand. When she does, V spends a full week feeling like he’s been stuffed full of cotton. Slightly unreal, light on his feet, soft and a bit unbalanced. The sheer enormity of it seems to curve space around them and more and more people fall into orbit around them. The RFA comes into existence and V is the happiest he’s ever been.

Caught in the event horizon of it all, he thinks it’s lucky he’s only had to trade his meanings for this.

 

* * *

iv.

Rika takes his eyes and it’s only fair.

The RFA is in a slow collapse, though, and that stirs something sharp that twists his insides. It might have been resentment, a long time ago, back when he was still young and brash. It’s nothing that distinct now, just an amorphous hurt that freezes him in his tracks whenever Jumin suggests surgery or Luciel not-so-subtly tries to cheer him up. He doesn’t have the heart to tell them no so often, and it’s only a small leap until he avoids contacting them entirely. He’s shedding a skin too, but V is not sure if he’s growing or shrinking.

When he sees the Mint Eye headquarters coming up into view over the mountain road, it feels like being hit in an exposed nerve.

 

* * *

v.

The drugs had been a surprise. He’d thought there wasn’t anything lower left for him to sink to and yet here he was. Sweaty, feverish and delusional by his own (admittedly dubious) appraisal. Time had grown a waxy sheen, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to flow or not, and judging by the terrifying dreams ( _hallucinations_?) he’d been fighting off, it couldn’t even decide on the present. He had been thinking about fires a lot.

Which was, coincidentally, what he was feeling right now. An agonizing heat licking at his bones, forcing him to open his eyes. He does so with a displeased groan and blinks until a concerned face comes into view. There’s a curtain of bangs blocking his full view, but there’s was no mistaking that face, and V feels panic rush in like a cold bucket of water had just been dumped on his head.

He tries to say her name, but it comes out scratchy and distorted. He’s sure he can hear the cracks in his lips open up as he tries to get the right sounds out.

Her face breaks into a relieved grin and V viciously fights the need to recoil. He’s done nothing to deserve this. He’s the only reason she was in danger in the first place,  _she shouldn’t look at him like this_. His body is lifeless and unwilling, though, so he has to bear the full brunt of that sunny expression.

‘Ah, good! You slept for a lot longer this time around, I was getting worried.’

His unspoken questions must have shown up on his face because she continues with a dismissive hand wave.

‘You’ve done this a couple of time before, you know. Wake up and be super confused. That fever must be quite bad, you always look out of it. I mean, Vanderwood did say the elixir was, uh, drugs. And pretty dangerous ones at that. I guess I didn’t really consider how hard it must be for your body to try and flush them out. I’m pretty impressed you’re holding up so well, to be honest! A couple of hours ago you couldn’t even say that much. This is the most alert I’ve seen you all day.’

She stops suddenly and looks away with what looks like sheepishness. The fever sends ripples across his already damaged vision, it's hard to be sure.

‘Sorry, this must be a bit too much to take in. I tend to ramble when I’m nervous. It’s been very quiet in here too, I guess I’ve missed chatting with you. Vanderwood is quite intimidating and Seven isn’t very talkative when he’s working. I understand why, of course, but I wish there was some more…ah, I’m rambling again! Sorry!’

V tries to make what he hopes is a pacifying gesture.

‘It’s okay. Don’t,’ he takes a deep breath and waits for some moisture to return to his mouth before carrying on, ‘aplogise.’

He feels exhausted just from that. V closes his eyes for a moment, trying to pull his thoughts together and decide on a course of action, but they’re flying off in different directions at breakneck speed. It feels like the elixir displaced all the energy from his body into his brain.

In the interim, she’s moved from her seat to the small table on the other side of room; there’s a small jug of water there and she bounces back with a glass filled half-way. He makes a weak motion for it while she helps him up against a soft nest of pillows. When he finally gets to drink the water, the shock from the difference in temperature makes his teeth clatter and hit the edge of the glass. V powers through it anyway, desperate to relieve the desert that had lodged into his throat, and finds that he can breathe more easily when he’s done.

She’s been watching him the whole time, smile still on her face. He feels a different kind of feeling burn away at his muscles, a shameful realisation that he’s once again made things worse for everyone. Instead of telling him off ( _like she should have_ ) or even walking away, the girl hands him his phone. Her smile wavers slightly, and when it does come back there’s something oddly sad in it.

‘You always ask for it when you wake up,’ she clarifies.

‘Ah,’ is all he can say to that. There’s a fuzzy tinge to the edge of his vision. He blinks, trying to diffuse the static, but it only agitates it further and he gives up on that.

‘I’m sorry,’ he manages eventually. ‘For everything. You shouldn’t have been involved in this to begin with, and then I couldn’t even…’

The rest of the apology is cut short when she shushes him.

‘You didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t have followed strangers to remote mountain locations, okay? Let’s just leave it at that. Trust me. We’ve had this talk a couple of times and I always win. Well, I win because you eventually black out from the drugs. But. My point still stands.’

‘Oh,’ V says and he’s starting to feel a bit foolish. He’s not exactly contributing much, and the idea that he just falls back into unconsciousness in the middle of conversations only makes the shame stronger. The crushing force of just how out of control everything is overtakes him and he finds himself biting back tears.

‘Hey, I’ve been thinking,’ she says suddenly and he’s grateful for the distraction. He can’t really make out the details in her expression, but he hopes she hasn’t noticed his little breakdown. ‘Can I call you by your real name?’

Well. That’s surprise number two. The drugs had been kinder. V wishes he had something more intelligent to say than  _what?,_  but that’s what he settles on after due consideration. He adds  _that’s sudden_  to convince himself that he’s capable of more than monosyllabic thoughts. The strain of keeping up with the flow of conversation is making his head swim violently and he can feel tendrils of sleep pulling him deeper into the pillows.

‘It doesn’t feel right to keep calling you V after all this,’ she says while fidgeting with the edge of the sheets. The movement is soothing. ‘I don’t want to pressure you or anything, you can take your time to think about it. But…I get the feeling…a feeling, at least. Hmm, how should I put this, I don’t think V would have went to all that trouble for a stranger, that’s all. I don’t think I should be talking with V right now. It’s up to you, though.' 

V opens his mouth to say that  _of course_  V would have done all that, V just  _did_ all that, but there’s an oncoming wave of blackness rushing out to meet him. His vision swims for a moment and he grips the phone a bit harder to keep himself anchored in the present. It’s a mixed success. She’s looking him in the eyes again.

‘Ah, you’re tired now. Don’t worry about anything, we have your back. And…think about what I’ve said, okay?’

Jihyun falls asleep with a small noise of protest, although he’s not sure what he’s fighting against exactly. The notion that people should be worrying and suffering for him, maybe. Or the way the name slips back across his skin like it had never left at all.

 

* * *

 vi.

It takes him years to even begin to understand how much of himself he’d had to flatten out to fit into the shape of V. It’ll take him years to figure out what piece goes where in the puzzle that Jihyun had become to himself. It starts off abruptly, with the unravelling of Mint Eye. It unfolds slowly, with small attempts at mending relationships ( _he’s calling Jumin a lot more often these days, listens to him talk about dear Elizabeth, might have even offered to paint her very own armada portrait_ ). It breathes and moves like a living thing in his spine when he shows her his works in progress.

He’s got time.


End file.
